me l'a donnée, gare à qui la touche.' This became the motto of the iron crown, which the emperor founded in commemoration of his being crowned king of Italy. By this measure Bonaparte completed the assimilation between himself and Charlemagne."*

Power, in the words of the prophecy and in his Own, WAS GIVEN unto him. Twelve years before he was seated on the imperial throne, his name was unknown in Europe; eleven years only had elapsed since his first military service in Corsica; within a still shorter period he had sought to transfer his services to the sultan, and now he was possessed of power unequalled in Europe, and before which almost all its kingdoms successively fell, till scarcely any career of conquest ever equalled his own. The myriads of Xerxes and Darius, of Alaric and Attila, would have been as flocks of sheep to wolves, compared to the masses of Napoleon; and, contrasted with his, their motions would have been those of a sloth, compared to the eagle flight of Napoleon. The naval war of Britain mocked all comparison on the ocean; and it may perhaps be said, that, as to intrinsic power, none on earth, under the command of one man, equalled that of Napoleon. As his conquests spread, he drew forth armies under his banners from conquered kingdoms. And war for a long season became the occupation of Europe. France was a military school : scarcely was a man to be seen in the fields; they were left to be cultivated by the women. annual conscription was often anticipated, till men, far from the prime of life, were called forth by thousands. Military glory was, in France, the rage of the day. And they who but shortly before had beheaded their king, and drenched their country with blood in the cause of liberty, were little else

* Bourrienne's Mem. of Bonaparte, p. 192.

The vast

than the worshippers of a Corsican despot, who, a little time before, would have been proud of the charge of a single cannon, but who speedily exercised an authority and power over France and Europe, which passed the wildest dream of the most ambitious of their kings. But the power that was given him was neither inactive, nor wasted in vain. The first vial which he poured out was local; and he flew only from river to river, where these were closely crowded. But when he had reached a throne, and held an empire as his own, like the scorching sun that shines at once on half the world, his power was felt over Europe, whose kingdoms became his prey.

All power of government centered in himself. He had no divided empire over France or Italy, as he strove to have none throughout the world. "In reading the history of this period we find,” says Bourrienne, "that in whatever place Napoleon happened to be, there was the central point of action. The affairs of Europe were arranged at his headquarters, in the same manner as if he had been in Paris."*"One very remarkable feature of the imperial wars was, that, with the exception of the interior police, the whole government of France was at the head-quarters of the emperor. In fact, during his reign the government of France was always at his head-quarters."+ That was the centre of his power; and from thence he shone, like the sun, and scorched the world.

And power was given unto him to scorch men with fire, and men were scorched with great heat. Though symbolized by the sun, he is spoken of as a person; yet, in conformity to the symbol, the destruction which he wrought, no longer confined to a single region, is described as his scorching men with fire,

*Bourrienne's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 228. † Ibid: p. 409.

and with great heat, denoting the severity of the judgment, and the withering influence of his power, while dominant, against all on whom it fell. Within the space of eight years, he scorched every kingdom. in Europe, from Naples to Berlin, and from Lisbon to Moscow. Ancient kingdoms withered before the intense blaze of his power. Plagues accompanied his progress. In the wars which he waged, the conquest of kingdoms was the work of a day. Decrees were issued; supplies, the most exorbitant, were levied; kingdoms were unsparingly reft like garments. He parcelled out continental Europe, as a heritage; and a system of spoliation, extortion, and oppression was established, that the subjected nations might be enslaved to the will of one man. Like the sun, there was nothing hid from his great heat; and the exercise of his power was the misery of millions.

The contents of chapters of history have heretofore borne palpable evidence of manifest judgments ful filled in ancient times, and of the close order of their succession; and the same obvious illustration of events within our own remembrance is still open to our sight. The conclusion of the contents of the eighteenth chapter, and the whole of the nineteenth, of the able and interesting History of Napoleon Bonaparte, already so frequently quoted, thus follow in exact order.

*

"Napoleon emperor of France-King of ItalyGenoa united to the empire-New coalition against France-Sweden, Russia, Austria join the alliance -Napoleon heads the army in Germany-Ulm surrendered by Mack-Vienna taken-(Naval operations Battle of Trafalgar)-Battle of Austerlitz -Treaty of Presburg-Joseph Bonaparte king of

* Nos. I. and II. Family Library, published by Murray.

Naples-Louis Bonaparte king of Holland-Confederation of the Rhine-New nobility in France."

The triumphs in northern Italy along the rivers and fountains of waters raised Bonaparte to the throne, and prepared the way for the destruction of the empire of Germany. On the 26th May 1805, Bonaparte was crowned king of Italy. The battle of Ulm, after a previous defeat of the Austrians, was fought on the 19th October; and Ulm was surrendered, with 30,000 men. In November, the Austrians were five times defeated by the French; and Vienna was taken. And, on the 2d December, the battle of Austerlitz was fought. The emperors of Russia and Germany saw their armies defeated by the newly-created emperor of France, and no sun was henceforth to shine, for a season, like himself in the political horizon. Napoleon, who came to pour out the first portion of a new vial of the wrath of God, observing an opening in the hostile line, the result of a snare which he had laid for the enemy, and seizing the opportunity, "forthwith poured a force upon that space which entirely destroyed the communication between the Russian centre and left." "They resisted sternly, but were finally broken, and fled. The French centre advanced, and the charges of its cavalry under Murat were decisive. The emperors of Austria and Germany beheld, from the heights of Austerlitz, the total ruin of their centre, as they had already of their left. Their right wing had hitherto contested well against all the impetuosity of Lannes; but Napoleon could now gather round them on all sides, and HIS ARTILLERY PLUNGING INCESSANT FIRE upon them from the heights, they at length found it impossible to hold their ground. They were forced down into a hollow, where some small frozen lakes offered the only means of escape from the closing cannonade. The French broke the

ice about them by a storm of shot, and nearly 20,000 men died on the spot, some swept by the artillery, the greater part drowned. Bonaparte, in his bulletin, compares the horrible spectacle of this ruin to the catastrophe of the Turks at Aboukir, when the sea was covered with turbans. It was with great difficulty that the two emperors rallied some fragments of their armies around them, and effected their retreat. Twenty thousand prisoners, forty pieces of artillery, and all the standards of the imperial guard of Russia remained with the conquerors. Such was the battle of Austerlitz, or, as the French soldiery delighted to call it, the battle of the emperors.'"*

On the morning of the battle, the sun rose with uncommon brilliancy on many an after-day, the French soldiery hailed a similar dawn with exultation, as the sure omen of victory, and "the sun of Austerlitz" has passed into a proverb. It was the battle of the emperors; and on that day the sun of Bonaparte not only arose with brilliancy, and eclipsed at once the two great rival luminaries of continental Europe, but men were scorched with great heat before it. Power was given unto him to scorch men WITH FIRE. He poured his ever-firing troops between the ranks of the enemy, and his artillery plunged incessant fire on them, till the spectacle of ruin was hor rible, even in the sight, and according to the word, of the great destroyer. Such is the first of manifold illustrations of the power that was given to the Emperor Napoleon to scorch men with fire. Such was the effect of the first burning rays which it emitted. But it shone with like intensity over continental Europe, which that day witnessed the power it was destined to feel. Marengo was the last of the vial

VOL. II.

* Hist. of Napoleon, vol. i. pp. 323, 324.

K